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NATURAL GAS: Massachusetts lawmakers consider legislation that would require proposals to expand natural gas service to consider climate impacts and whether there are “less costly or less polluting alternatives.” (Boston Herald)
ALSO: Residents of a Pennsylvania community are seeking answers as chemicals used in fracking are suspected in a spike of cancer cases. (The Guardian)
SOLAR:
WIND:
BUILDINGS: Rhode Island lawmakers weigh competing bills to measure emissions from buildings, which advocates say will be critical to reducing the sector’s climate impact. (Rhode Island Current)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
TRANSPORTATION:
GRID: Developers of New England’s first utility-scale standalone energy storage facility say they have secured financing for construction. (Renewable Energy World)
UTILITIES: Maryland regulators reject a multi-year rate increase proposed by an Exelon subsidiary, saying that front-loading capital expenses “undermines regulatory review, and shifts risks to customers.” (Utility Dive)
COMMENTARY: The executive director of the Maine Port Authority defends the state’s decision to site an offshore wind staging facility at Sears Island, highlighting weaknesses of a competing site nearby. (Bangor Daily News)
Correction: The Ohio Consumers’ Counsel is Maureen Willis. A previous version of this story misstated her name.
Last year was the eighth in a row that at least one of Ohio’s regulated electric utilities failed to meet one or both company-specific reliability standards set by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
Companies providing service to a majority of Ohio ratepayers also missed one of their marks last year.
These utilities’ track records suggest consumers aren’t getting full bang for their buck, even as they’re charged millions for riders purportedly for grid improvements, vegetation management and other work.
“AEP Ohio has been investing hundreds of millions of dollars in its distribution to improve reliability,” said company spokesperson Scott Blake, commenting on the PUCO’s slightly stricter standards for the company starting in 2019, compared to those from 2013. “These investments are making stricter performance standards more achievable.”
Yet AEP Ohio failed to meet its standard last year for how long it takes to get power back on when outages affect customers.
All Ohio utilities reduced the frequency of their outages per customer last year compared to 2021 and 2022. But Duke Energy Ohio still failed to meet that standard. AEP Ohio and FirstEnergy’s Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company and Toledo Edison meanwhile failed to hit their targets for how long it takes to restore customers’ power after outages.
Prolonged outages can lead to spoiled food, loss of heating and air conditioning, interruptions to business, inability to use power for electronics and more. Those problems in turn can threaten people’s physical or financial well-being. Additionally, ongoing climate change poses continuing challenges for the electric grid’s reliability and resilience.
“Regulators of course are interested in utilities’ performance in delivering safe and reliable power,” said Matt Schilling, spokesperson for the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
Toward that end, the agency sets two company-specific reliability standards for each electric utility, using common metrics in the electric industry. Utilities must file reports each spring showing how they performed on each metric in the prior year.
One standard refers to the average time outages last for customers who experience them, measured in minutes. It’s called the Customer Average Interruption Duration Index, or CAIDI. The other is the average number of outages per customer systemwide. It’s known as the System Average Interruption Frequency Index, or SAIFI.
If a utility fails to meet the SAIFI metric, “it means they are having too many outages occurring,” said FirstEnergy spokesperson Lauren Siburkis. “And if they fail at meeting CAIDI, it means they are taking too long to restore [power] when there is an outage.”
The metrics allow period-to-period comparisons so a company can track its improvement over time, she added.
The PUCO’s rules exclude major outages, such as those due to some extreme weather events, in determining whether companies met or missed their regulatory reliability standards, although the annual reports include the data both before and after the exclusions. Yet the “customer minutes interrupted,” which did count toward the reliability standards, added up to more than 1,000 years of power loss for individual customers last year.
The four utilities that failed to meet one of their standards last year provide power to more than half of Ohio’s electricity customers. The Energy News Network’s data review shows at least one Ohio utility also missed meeting a standard every year going back to 2016.
In 2022, CEI and AES Ohio both missed their standards for the average duration of customer outages, and Duke missed its standard for the average frequency of outages in 2021 and 2022.
AES Ohio failed to meet its standard for the average length of customer outages for four years in a row, from 2019 through 2022, but spokesperson Mary Ann Kabel said the situation is improving.
“The company’s CAIDI has improved every year since 2019, and we’re committed to providing safe and reliable service,” she said.
Before that, in 2018, AEP missed on both of its performance standards. Duke Energy Ohio missed on both of its standards in 2017. And in 2016 Duke missed on its standard for the average time customers with outages went without power.
When companies fail to meet either of their reliability standards in the prior year, regulators require them to provide reasoning and a plan to address those issues. The Ohio Administrative Code says missing the same standard for two years in a row counts as a violation. Violations can result in penalties, corrective action, or restitution to customers.
Utilities’ ability to meet their performance standards depends on multiple factors, Schilling said. All have programs to trim vegetation within their rights-of-way, but vegetation outside that area also can interfere with power lines and equipment.
“Other factors like aging infrastructure and maintenance can cause outages,” Schilling said, although “utilities routinely invest to update and maintain their systems.”
Additional causes include damage from wildlife or motor vehicle crashes, some of which may be out of utility companies’ control.
Extreme weather played a role in Duke’s miss on the frequency standard last year. Three big storms in July 2023 bumped up the number of outages, even though the storms didn’t meet criteria for excluded events, the company’s filing said.
FirstEnergy’s action plan filed in April pointed to line and equipment failures and to trees as reasons why CEI and Toledo Edison didn’t meet their standards last year. Toledo Edison and CEI plan to conduct thermal scans of their worst performing circuits and additional work to upgrade lightning protection and other equipment in places where customers have multiple outages. Other work aims to prevent tree-related problems.
“Tree-related outages are a top contributor to outage durations because of the need to safely remove the vegetation prior to starting repair work,” Siburkis said, “so the tree-related work in the plan will have a positive impact, even during major events.”
Vegetation management was also part of AES Ohio’s work when it failed to meet its outage duration standard. The company’s action plan filed in 2023 said the company was working to install stronger poles and make other improvements “to reduce the severity of storm outages.” Smart grid deployment was also part of the company’s plan, along with a revision of its reliability standards.
AES Ohio’s updated standards took effect last year. They allow nearly seven minutes longer for restoring service to customers when they lose power, but require a slightly lower average frequency for outages. A slightly lower SAIFI standard would reflect an expectation for there to be fewer outages in the first place.
AEP Ohio blamed arithmetic for its failure to meet the outage duration standard last year. Smart grid work eliminated various shorter outages, the company reported. But a smaller number of service interruptions pushed up the average duration for outages that did occur.
“AEP Ohio’s CAIDI score has gone up not because AEP Ohio’s performance on longer outages has gotten worse, but rather because AEP Ohio has been able to eliminate shorter outages that had been keeping the CAIDI average down,” Blake said.
An additional industry metric, known as SAIDI, for System Average Interruption Duration Index, divides the number of outages by all customers, whether they lost power or not. Using that metric makes it look like AEP Ohio outperformed by more than 25%, according to data in the company’s filing.
House Bill 260, sponsored by Republicans Bill Seitz of Cincinnati and Monica Robb Blasdel of Columbiana, would swap out SAIDI for CAIDI.
Seitz initially said he didn’t know how reliability was currently calculated. Then in a follow-up email he said he had been informed a switch “would better incentivize utilities to meet the reliability demands of customers,” adding an opinion that the installation of smart meters and other work to reduce outages makes the CAIDI standard “obsolete.”
“It’s meaningless if you don’t have both” of the current standards, said Ashley Brown, a former PUCO commissioner, adding that decisions about reliability standards are best left to regulators, not the legislature.
The bill’s proposal to change the metric “diminishes the importance of individual consumer outages,” said Ohio Consumers’ Counsel Maureen Willis. “Other changes being proposed weaken the reliability standards by excluding more outages from being part of the reliability assessment,” she added.
BUILDINGS: Inflation Reduction Act funding for home energy rebates will likely remain mostly unspent until after the November election; Trump allies have indicated he would revamp the program and jeopardize the funding if he is elected. (E&E News)
ALSO: As some co-op and condo buildings consider just paying the fines instead of complying with New York City’s building emissions law, the city’s council considers a bill to ease penalties. (Gothamist)
SOLAR: Covering around 10% of the world’s lakes and reservoirs with floating solar panels could generate enough electricity to power the United Kingdom four times over, and could be used to cover all power use in some small countries, scientists find. (Grist)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
GRID:
POLITICS:
UTILITIES: The Tennessee Valley Authority says its emissions reductions and renewable power generation makes it a clean energy leader, but critics say its proposal to build 7,000 MW of new gas generation negates that claim. (Knoxville News Sentinel)
PIPELINES: “I don’t want to be in town when it blows up” — Virginia residents react to federal regulators’ approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s request to begin transporting natural gas. (WVTF, WDBJ)
GEOTHERMAL: Google agrees to purchase about 112 MW of enhanced geothermal-generated electricity from NV Energy to power its Nevada data centers. (Reuters)
GEOTHERMAL: Google agrees to purchase about 112 MW of enhanced geothermal-generated electricity from NV Energy to power its Nevada data centers. (Reuters)
SOLAR: An Arizona city plans to install 3 MW of solar capacity over 660 parking spaces at municipal facilities. (Mesa Tribune)
GRID:
WIND: A developer begins site investigation surveys for its proposed 1,600 MW Canopy offshore wind farm off northern California’s coast. (Windpower)
UTILITIES:
OIL & GAS:
TRANSPORTATION:
CLIMATE:
DIVESTMENT: Advocates urge California’s public employee pension fund to limit its investments in ExxonMobil after the company sued climate-advocate shareholders. (E&E News, subscription)
COAL: Right-wing Wyoming lawmakers call for a special session to fight the Biden administration’s proposal to end new federal coal leasing in the Powder River Basin. (Cowboy State Daily)
NUCLEAR: A Wyoming community college receives $2.4 million in state funds to develop a nuclear technology program to support a proposed advanced reactor at a retiring coal plant. (Douglas Budget)
MINING: Conservation groups prepare to sue the U.S. Forest Service for allegedly violating federal law when approving a copper mine’s expansion in central Arizona. (news release)
Swapping out natural gas heating for an all-electric heat pump can be a big ask. Finding a qualified contractor, upgrading an electric panel, considering efficiency in cold weather — that’s a lot to consider for most people.
Electric equipment like lawnmowers and leafblowers meanwhile only need to be plugged in to replace their fossil fuel-powered alternatives. And as a new survey from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy finds, they can be key in encouraging homeowners to take on bigger electrification projects down the line.
The electrification advocacy group surveyed 1,801 homeowners and renters about how they power their homes and appliances, and what might encourage them to electrify, Canary Media reports. It turned out that participants who already had electric lawn equipment were 84% more likely than others to want to electrify their cooking appliances, and 33% and 32% more likely to want to electrify their home and water heating, respectively.
Another new idea that could motivate an electric switch? A warning label telling consumers about the pollutants gas stoves release in their kitchens.
A consumer advocacy group recently filed a lawsuit against GE Appliances claiming the company didn’t tell buyers about the dangerous pollutants, E&E News reports. The group says that violates Washington, D.C.’s consumer protection law, and wants a judge to require the manufacturer to put a warning label on the gas stoves it sells.
Would a warning label make you think twice before buying a gas stove? What about rebates or other motivators? Let us know by replying to this email.
🚗 Cleaner cars coming soon: In a bid to boost electric vehicles, the Biden administration proposes fuel economy rules that would require new cars to average 38 miles per gallon by 2031, a jump from 29 mpg today but short of standards originally proposed last year. (Associated Press)
🌞 Surprise solar boom: A two-year pause on federal solar import tariffs from Southeast Asia ends, which experts say could drive a solar installation boom as developers use up components they’ve imported duty-free. (Reuters)
🏭 ‘Systematic’ underrepresentation: A new study finds people of color are underrepresented in the fossil fuel and chemical manufacturing industries, even as emissions disproportionately affect their communities. (Floodlight)
💵 Banking on clean energy: The International Energy Agency expects global investments in clean energy to exceed fossil fuels by 10 times over this year, largely because of skyrocketing solar project spending. (The Guardian)
☢️ Nuclear questions: As the Biden administration moves to boost nuclear deployment, industry experts and officials who led Georgia’s over-budget, long-delayed Plant Vogtle construction warn against building new large reactors. (Utility Dive, Bloomberg)
⚖️ Climate lawsuits at risk: Fossil fuel leaders and allies author op-eds and run social media ads to push the U.S. Supreme Court to take their side and dismiss dozens of lawsuits from cities and states looking to hold the industry accountable for climate damages. (The Guardian, E&E News)
🌋 Hotspotting: A new map reveals potential geothermal hotspots across the U.S. where subterranean heat is strong enough to be tapped for electricity generation. (The Hill)
🔌 Get interconnected: U.S. utilities and grid operators aren’t taking full advantage of regional transmission connections, potentially reducing reliability and raising electricity costs, a federal lab’s study finds. (Utility Dive)
It’s become a biannual tradition.
Since 2021, when North Carolina adopted a law requiring Duke Energy to zero out its carbon pollution, advocates have spent every other year poring over the company’s plans for supplying this state of 11 million with clean electricity.
As of late last month, the first phase of the new ritual is now complete: citizens turned out by the hundreds to public hearings around the state and submitted written comments; and dozens of organizations, businesses, and large customers filed testimony to the state’s Utilities Commission, charged with approving or amending Duke’s plan by year’s end.
A review of these comments shows clear dissatisfaction with Duke’s plan, which critics say is too reliant on gas and unproven technologies and too dismissive of resources like solar and battery storage.
But there are also a few powerful institutions pulling in the opposite direction. And their voices could grow louder in the coming months, as the state enters the next phase of in-person, expert witness hearings.
The law requires Duke to cut its carbon pollution by 70% by 2030 and at least 95% by midcentury, in line with scientists’ recommendations for avoiding catastrophic global warming. The statute directs regulators on the Utilities Commission to develop a plan to make that happen and to update the blueprint every two years.
Even as the popular, bipartisan measure moved through the legislative process, some critics worried it gave too much deference to Duke and did not make clear that regulators — not the utility — would chart the state’s path to a decarbonized electricity sector.
Still, after Duke in 2022 issued its first Carbon Plan proposal — a document covering hundreds of pages and including four different pathways for achieving net zero — a host of outside stakeholders put forward their own plans for the commission to mull, hoping the panel would pick and choose from them or even craft its own blueprint.
But in the end, after months upon months of expert hearings, public input, and thousands of pages of written testimony, the commission adopted Duke’s plan with few edits.
This first Carbon Plan order was largely nonbinding. But after regulators sided with Duke on virtually every major issue — from how much the company should drive energy efficiency to how much solar it can connect annually to the grid — advocates this year are taking a slightly different tack.
Rather than devise their own painstaking models to compete with Duke and its army of lawyers, engineers, and other experts, this time most organizations are starting with the company’s portfolios and critiquing key elements.
As in the lead up to the first Carbon Plan, this year Duke has proposed multiple routes to zero carbon by midcentury, with one clear preference. Offered in January after predicting a steep rise in electricity demand, that pathway is to add over 22 gigawatts of renewable energy and battery storage in the next decade, including from ocean-based wind turbines.
In the same time frame, the company wants to shutter most of its coal plants and add nearly 9 gigawatts of new gas plants, nearly three times the immediate build-out it proffered two years ago and one of the largest such proposals in the country. It also envisions two small nuclear plants of 300 megawatts each, about a seventh the size of the state’s largest nuclear plant outside Charlotte.
The company seeks to exploit exceptions in the state’s law to achieve a 70% cut in carbon emissions by 2035 instead of 2030. And while its plans to zero out its pollution are vague, they rest partially on building more nuclear reactors by 2050 and fueling any remaining gas plants with hydrogen – a technology still under development.
Still, Duke’s focus is on the immediate term. In its January filing, it sought support for “pursuing near-term actions that align with [its preferred pathway] as the most reasonable, least cost, least risk plan to reliably transition the system and prudently plan for the needs of…customers at this time.”
Numerous commenters questioned that assertion, including the company’s premise that ratcheting down emissions more slowly than the law prescribes presents a “lower execution risk.”
Perhaps most notably, the Clean Energy Buyers Association, a group of 400 major corporations from a range of sectors with their own sustainability targets, argued forcefully against delaying the 2030 target.
“The ability of [our] members that are Duke customers to meet their clean energy commitments depends in large part on how clean Duke’s resource mix is,” the association’s Kyle Davis said in written testimony. He went on to say regulators should “only” approve a near-term plan that would allow Duke to cut its pollution 70% by decade’s end.
Similarly, a group of local government Duke customers with climate goals, including major cities Raleigh and Greensboro and small college towns Boone and Davidson, noted that Duke’s energy mix would dictate whether they could meet their aims.
“Due to the urgency of the climate crisis and the implications to the health and well-being of the constituents we serve,” the cities and counties wrote, “it is imperative that the 2030 target be met in the timelines specified in [the law.]”
Testifying for the office of the Attorney General Josh Stein, expert witness Edward Burgess noted that the commission has not yet abandoned the 2030 deadline and that, according to the law, the 70% cut could only slip past 2032 under “very specific conditions” that have not been met.
Regulators haven’t authorized a nuclear or wind project that has been delayed beyond Duke’s control, he asserted, and a delay wasn’t necessary to maintain the “adequacy and reliability of the existing grid.”
Recognizing Duke’s latest increased demand projections, Burgess urged commissioners to “set a clear directive for Duke to achieve the Interim Target by no later than 2032.” Otherwise, said the witness for the attorney general, the public interest would be harmed by the “increase [in] the cumulative tons of CO2 emitted, which would remain in the atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years.”
The process by which Duke maps its generation plans over the next decade is complex and time intensive. But it’s aided by a computer modeling program that weighs various factors including costs to produce an optimal generation mix.
This method produces more solar and battery storage each year than Duke thinks is possible or appropriate to connect to the grid, so the company imposes manual limits on the computer program. Critics call that step unnecessary and damaging to the project of curbing carbon emissions in a least-cost manner.
“Solar [photovoltaic] is the cheapest source of carbon-free electrons on the grid now and for the foreseeable future,” testified expert witness John Michael Hagerty on behalf of the Carolinas Clean Energy Business Association. “All things being equal, the more generation… that Duke can get from solar PV instead of other resources, the cheaper it will be for Duke to comply with carbon reduction targets.”
Michael Goggin, an expert witness for the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association and clean energy groups represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, analyzed other grid operators around the country and estimated that Duke could connect around 4 gigawatts of solar and storage annually, compared to the upper limit of 2.8 gigawatts suggested by the utility.
“Duke’s arbitrary limits on solar and battery interconnection should be greatly increased if not eliminated,” Goggin wrote. “These limits do not reflect reality, and there are many potential solutions to the interconnection challenges Duke claims in its attempt to justify these limits.”
While numerous commenters were happy to see Duke move much more ambitiously toward offshore wind than it did two years ago, they noted the utility’s projected 2.4 gigawatts — enough to power about a million homes — fell significantly short of the near-term potential in ocean wind areas off the state’s coast.
“The Carolina Long Bay projects have the potential to reach more than 2 gigawatts, and the Kitty Hawk Projects have the potential to reach nearly 3.5 gigawatts,” two employees of wind company Avangrid testified. “Therefore, there is additional offshore wind resource beyond the Preferred Portfolio request available to North Carolina.”
The state’s Department of Commerce has taken a keen interest in offshore wind because of its vast potential for economic development. Jennifer Mundt, an assistant secretary at the Department, implored regulators and Duke to “set a path forward… that directs the deployment of at least 6.0 gigawatts of offshore wind by the mid-2030s.”
Such development is achievable with the Carolina Long Bay and Kitty Hawk areas, she said, and “will unlock billions in capital expenditures and tens of thousands of good-paying jobs for North Carolinians, and boost Duke towards its mandate to achieve carbon neutrality by mid-century – a true win-win-win scenario.”
A pair of experts testifying for the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association noted that Duke would benefit from being a “second mover” on offshore wind in the United States: it could learn from the many other projects underway on the Eastern seaboard without putting ratepayers at risk.
In contrast, John O’Brien and Philip Moor warned that for small modular nuclear reactors, “it is unclear when the Companies will be a second mover… the only approved project design…has been cancelled, and the closest designs… are under development by TerraPower and the Tennessee Valley Authority.”
Indeed, while most clean energy advocates believe large, existing, emissions-free nuclear power plants can play a vital role in curbing carbon pollution, several say Duke’s near-term pursuit of as-yet unproven small modular reactors over more readily available alternatives is a mistake.
“Given the long lead-times, nuclear experts have found that [small modular reactors] will do nothing to address climate change, as the technology is too little, too late,” Grant Smith, senior energy policy advisor with Environmental Working Group, testified on behalf of his group, Durham nonprofit NC WARN, and others.
Numerous stakeholders criticized Duke’s plan to build 10 new gas plants in the next decade, half of which would be large baseload plants forced by new federal rules to run 40% of the time or less. Not only would Duke customers be on the hook for these underutilized plants, critics argued, they’d also be subject to erratic fuel prices.
“In North Carolina, this volatility was at the heart of hundreds of millions of dollars of recent fuel cost increases approved by the commission,” expert witness Evan Hansen testified on behalf of Appalachian Voices. “The Companies’ proposed aggressive build-out of natural gas-fired power plants will only increase their exposure, and their ratepayers’ exposure, to the future volatility of natural gas prices.”
The company’s strategy of converting gas plants to run on hydrogen molecules separated from other compounds as late as 2049 also strains credulity for some.
“Duke’s general plan to build new natural gas-firing facilities and then transition those facilities to 100% hydrogen-firing faces significant technical uncertainty, infrastructure hurdles and costs,” testified William McAleb for the Environmental Defense Fund. The plants, he said, “are not necessary to maintain grid reliability, may never be co-fired with hydrogen, and will likely raise rates.”
The Clean Energy Buyers Association also suggested that Duke’s plan to supply its members with gas-fired electricity could backfire, causing the state to lose economic development projects and the utility to lose new customers.
“Some of the new load that Duke is forecasting may not materialize if Duke increases the carbon intensity of its resource mix as it has proposed to do in this docket, since some of the customers bringing new load… have clean energy targets,” the association’s Davis wrote.
If that happens, he said, “and Duke overbuilds with fossil fuel capacity, it would result in higher costs for existing customers and make it more difficult for existing customers to meet their sustainability targets.”
Amid all this criticism, support for Duke’s approach stood out, especially where the timeline is concerned.
Testifying for the Carolina Industrial Group for Fair Industrial Rates, a powerful consortium of manufacturers and other large Duke customers, Brian Collins asserted, “there is increased cost and risk in reliably meeting the interim 70% target by 2030. As a result, I recommend that the Commission not require Duke to meet the 70% emission reductions target by 2030.”
Public Staff, the state-sanctioned ratepayer advocate, believes that compliance with the interim pollution cut is possible by 2034 but not before. And the state’s 26 electric cooperatives, which buy electricity wholesale from Duke, expressed some concern about the speed of transmission upgrades necessary to add renewable energy to the grid fast enough.
A technical conference is scheduled for next week in Raleigh, and what is likely to be weeks of expert-witness hearings begin July 22.
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: U.S. electric vehicle buyers have received more than $1 billion in point-of-sale rebates since the Treasury Department launched the instant incentives in January, discounting an estimated quarter of the 600,000 EVs sold so far this year. (E&E News)
ALSO:
OIL & GAS:
COAL:
GRID:
CLIMATE: Researchers expect average U.S. electric bills to be 8% higher this year than last due in part to warming temperatures, and urge governments to bar electricity shutoffs during extreme heat. (Utility Dive)
ELECTRIFICATION: California lawmakers introduce legislation that would allow utilities to voluntarily pay to electrify entire neighborhoods one by one instead of maintaining and replacing aging natural gas distribution networks. (Canary Media)
EMISSIONS: North Carolina regulators receive hundreds of comments complaining Duke Energy’s plan to meet state emission goals arbitrarily limits solar and battery storage and relies on unproven hydrogen technology to justify building new gas plants. (Energy News Network)
SOLAR:
GRID: An organization pushing to build transmission lines along highways recently scored a legislative win in Minnesota, and now looks to expand the policy to other states. (Canary Media)
ALSO: Consumers Energy is burying 2 miles of overhead power lines in eastern Michigan to improve grid reliability in an area prone to outages. (WJRT)
OVERSIGHT: An Ohio bill that surfaced after the HB 6 scandal and would require consumer representation on the state’s Public Utilities Commission is up for a first hearing today. (WOSU)
CLIMATE: Climate change-related severe storms have caused losses for insurers in Minnesota for six of the last seven years, likely driving higher insurance premiums and home prices for buyers. (MPR News)
UTILITIES: Indiana consumer and environmental advocates oppose a proposed Duke Energy rate increase that they contend would further the utility’s reliance on coal and volatile fuel costs. (Herald-Times)
OIL & GAS: Residents are ordered to evacuate a 16-story Youngstown, Ohio apartment building that neighbors a building that was structurally damaged from a natural gas explosion and is at risk of collapsing. (Associated Press)
SOLAR:
TRANSPORTATION: The city of Detroit is piloting a public transportation program that will use on-demand, self-driving shuttles in portions of the city to benefit older or disabled residents. (Model D)
EFFICIENCY: Ohio awards $5.6 million in energy efficiency grants for six projects across the state that aim to cut buildings’ energy use. (Cleveland.com)
POWER PLANTS: Ameren Missouri seeks permission to build a $900 million, 800 MW natural gas-fired peaking plant that would run during periods of high demand. (Daily Energy Insider)
COMMENTARY: A GOP state representative from Michigan says new federal tailpipe emissions regulations that accommodate an influx of electric vehicles would disrupt the state’s primary industry. (Bridge)
EMISSIONS: North Carolina regulators receive hundreds of comments complaining Duke Energy’s plan to meet state emission goals arbitrarily limits solar and battery storage and relies too much on unproven hydrogen technology to justify building nearly 9 GW of new gas plants. (Energy News Network)
ALSO: Researchers measure levels of carcinogenic ethylene oxide up to 20 times higher than previously estimated in Louisiana’s industrialized “Cancer Alley.” (Associated Press)
PIPELINES:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
SOLAR:
GRID: Duke Energy power equipment in North Carolina is struck by gunfire, causing an oil leak, sparking a fire and prompting an FBI investigation a year and a half after a shooting attack on substations elsewhere in the state. (WRAL)
COAL ASH: The U.S. EPA’s recent update to its coal ash rules still relies on companies to self-report and propose fixes for ash storage sites, which could lead to inconsistent enforcement. (E&E News)
STORAGE: A Texas startup looks to sell distributed battery storage systems to customers with the intention of boosting the grid while providing customers a source of backup power. (San Antonio Express-News)
UTILITIES: A Florida municipal utility board votes down a motion to fire its general manager after a debate over reducing its capital and operating expenses. (Alachua Chronicle)
CLIMATE: A North Carolina researchers links intense heat and drought with a spike in emergency room visits by young people reporting mood disorders and suicide risks. (Inside Climate News)
POLITICS: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin questions whether a $21 million solar installation at the Pentagon might incorporate Chinese technology, despite Biden administration assurances the panels adhere to an executive order and “Made in America” laws. (WRIC)
COMMENTARY: Virginia regulators’ consideration of mitigation rules for certain solar farms ignores the development of new practices and technology, suggesting an eventual proposal won’t benefit anyone, writes an energy columnist. (Virginia Mercury)
FOSSIL FUELS: Fracking work in the Pittsburgh area is turning local residents’ water from drinkable to nonpotable and laden with chemicals, but a nearby driller is offering to provide water in exchange for signing an agreement with non-disclosure terms. (Public Source)
ALSO: Federal energy regulators authorize operations on the Mountain Valley pipeline, which will carry gas from fields in Pennsylvania and Ohio to points in the mid-Atlantic and further south. (Associated Press)
WIND:
SOLAR:
AFFORDABILITY:
POLICY: Maine environmental officials say the state is already 91% of the way to achieving its carbon neutrality by 2045 goal by slashing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing carbon sequestration, but many buildings still rely on petroleum. (Portland Press Herald)
NUCLEAR:
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